Network-based delivery of media content has largely supplanted other forms of media content delivery, such as brick-and-mortar video sales and rental stores, mail-based video rental services, and so on. Instead of traveling a few miles to a physical store or waiting days for a title to arrive by mail, users may select media content titles to stream to their devices over high-speed broadband connections. Consequently, users are quickly growing accustomed to near-immediate delivery of media content. Rising user expectations may lead to frustration when playback does not begin immediately upon user selection of a media content title.